Fake anti-virus software on the increase

Fake antivirus applications are on the increase according to a report from GFI Software. In its top ten collection of the 10 most prevalent threat detections encountered during the month, the insecurity experts found that there was a new wave of or rogue Avs.

Growing since the start of the year, last month brought a significant spike in new variations of rogue AV, the report said. Christopher Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software said that while the velocity at which rogues were successfully propagating may have slowed toward the end of last year, they are certainly back now, and they remain a popular tactic among cybercriminals.

Many rogue AV programs are being distributed via spam containing malicious links to the Blackhole exploit, a tool used by cybercriminals to target unpatched vulnerabilities in software applications from industry leaders like Microsoft and Adobe. Users infected by rogue AV may be redirected to fraudulent websites, have their systems hijacked by software appearing to scan their PCs or plagued by messages warning of viruses and other PC security risk. These scareware tactics trick users into providing credit card data to purchase non-existent protection.

To make matters worse rogue AV utilities are continually tweaked in an attempt to avoid detection, with newer variants of these malicious applications propagating every 12 to 24 hours.